Unlock Free Legal Research Tools: Alternatives to Lexis and Westlaw (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Hello everybody, this is David Simon. I'm a partner at Sullivan Simon, the professional litigation ghostwriters where we write so you win. But I want to talk to you today about something you can do for your own clients. I want to talk to you about how you can conduct legal research without using Lexis or Westlaw. Little-known secret, I don't like Lexis and I don't like Westlaw. Instead, first choice, check out Google Scholar. I hope you've already done this, but if you haven't, please check it out. It's free. It's fast. It's quick. It's what you would expect from Google, except for instead of searching for cat pictures online, you can search case law. And you can sort the case law by date, by relevance. You can check what's cited, the cases you're looking for. It has all 50 states and federal all combined together for free and fast. It's the perfect thing to have bookmarked on your phone. So when you're in court and you can't remember that one case and the name that's on the tip of your tongue, you can look it up on your phone super quickly. Speaking of doing things fast, if you want something else, try Fast Case. You probably have access through Fast Case through a bar association. Both Pennsylvania and New Jersey bar associations offer it for free to their members and a lot of county bar associations and other legal professional organizations offer it. Check it out. It's like the poor man's Lexis or Westlaw, but all it has is the stuff you need and it doesn't have the stuff you don't need. You can search cases, state and federal, statutes, rules, regulations. You can check citing authorities, search by date, relevance, and all the ways you would hope to be able to search and chances are you can access it for free. And speaking of free, law libraries. Your local law school law library will probably let you come in for free where there's a law librarian who will help you with your research. I also can't say enough about the Jenkins Law Library in Philadelphia in Center City. You can go for $5 a day if you're not already a member like I am and they have Lexis, Westlaw, Boo, but also legal research tools like books and treaties and forms and law librarians who will help you with a smile. So check it out. Google Scholar, Fast Case, a law library. No for Lexis, no for Westlaw, and if you don't feel like doing any of those you can always give Matt Sullivan or David Simon a call at Sullivan Simon. We'd be happy to help you out as well. Thanks so much guys. We write so you win.